In most prior art injection molding systems, the entire base mold (also referred to as a “base mold”) must be removed from the mold press to replace cavities and other components housed therein. Removing base molds is labor intensive and can shut down a mold press for extended amounts of time. Another problem with these systems is that modules and cavities are bolted together. Replacing or servicing modules and cavities is, therefore, both time consuming and tedious.
There are several types of quick change tooling on the market that attempt to address the aforementioned problems. They generally employ a housing/insert philosophy which minimizes the tooling footprint. While this methodology functions for molding components with “open and shut” geometry it does not allow for more sophisticated geometries such as threads. These approaches also do not facilitate rapid and accurate change over as the inserts do not have a carrier which is used to position the insert for installation and removal. Removal of modules is, therefore, difficult and time consuming.